it just seems that motiva has endured multiple hurricanes. I wouldn't have thought that Harvey changed anything. The risk of hurricanes was already there when they crafted the plan to expand. But maybe that's just the conspiracy theorist in me talking. Maybe Harvey was just the last straw.

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The risk of hurricanes was already there when they crafted the plan to expand. But maybe that's just the conspiracy theorist in me talking. Maybe Harvey was just the last straw.

Nah, those guys can insulate themselves from flooding by pounding in curtain walls, which are steel plates made in a zig-zag and pounded in with a pile driver. You build a curtain wall around the entire site with sheet steel piling and then pour a concrete casing over that, pinned to the dike, and you are good to go. So the flooding is not what is impinging this expansion.

The owner of that refinery is Saudi Aramco, so yo have to expect that any explanation coming from management is going to be oblique. The real reasons will lie elsewhere, and are being kept tight to the chest. Where do they want to sell the output? If any is headed for Europe, then it becomes logical to build a balancing refinery in Newfoundland (similar to the one at Come-by-Chance), or in Cyprus, or Spain.